July 23, 2025
- Rhode Island is suing 13 companies involved in the Washington Bridge’s design, inspection, and repair.
- The state’s lawyers are questioning what the companies knew about the bridge’s deterioration before its emergency closure.
- The questions focus on the bridge’s post-tensioning design and the discovered corrosion and voids.
The state’s lawyers have filed the questions they are asking contractors who inspected or worked on the doomed westbound span of the Washington Bridge as part of their far-reaching lawsuit against those who may have known about the bridge’s condition.
The Rhode Island attorney general’s office filed a series of “interrogatories” in Superior Court that, in effect, ask each of the 13 companies the state is suing what they knew about the potentially catastrophic deterioration of the westbound span in the decade preceding its emergency closure on Dec. 11, 2023.
By their very nature, the questions revolve around the way the bridge was constructed, with pre-stressed concrete bolstered by an internal web of steel rods and cables to add strength – a design called “post-tensioning.”
In post-tensioning, tendon cables are run through ducts in the concrete, pulled tight and anchored, squeezing the beams into compression to make them more resistant to bending or cracking under heavy loads. The ducts are filled with grout to secure and protect them.
When experts looked closely at the bridge, they found active corrosion of exposed tendon anchors, voids within the ducts, soft grout, corroded tendons and cracked, unsound concrete, according to a February 2024 report from VN Engineers.
What did the AG’s office ask the Washington Bridge contractors?
These were among the questions that Attorney General Peter Neronha, lawyer Jonathan Savage and a team of lawyers from the Palm Beach, Florida-based Cohen Milstein law firm, posed to AECOM Technical Services and the other companies involved in the design, repair and inspection of the westbound Washington Bridge:
- “How does the presence of voids in the grout surrounding the post-tensioning cables impact the Washington Bridge’s structural integrity?”
- “What are the potential consequences of corrosion in the post-tensioning cables, and how does this affect the Washington Bridge’s safety?”
- “Which descriptions of deterioration in the February 26, 2024 VN Engineers Report, if any, were you and your subconsultants aware of during your respective involvement with the Washington Bridge?”
- “Identify all steps taken by you in evaluating the Washington Bridge’s fracture critical elements.”
- “What methods should have been employed to properly assess the condition of the post-tensioned cables and grout during your work on the Washington Bridge?”
- And for AECOM and several other companies, this question: “Based on AECOM’s 2014 inspection and design plans, what critical issues should have been addressed in the proposed rehabilitation?”
- “During the rehabilitation design project … was any strengthening in the form of external post-tensioning considered? Why did you not recommend it?”
- Along with the interrogatories, the state’s lawyers also asked the defendants for a potential mountain of documents, including:
- “All internal memoranda, emails, reports, meeting minutes, and other communications documenting your concerns about the Washington Bridge’s structural integrity at any point in time.”
- “All inspection reports, engineering analyses, test results, and other documents that identify, describe, or evaluate the presence of voids in the concrete grout surrounding the post-tensioning cables, including any documents that assess how these voids impact the Washington Bridge’s structural integrity.”
- “All supporting data used for any reports you prepared during the work you performed on the Washington Bridge, including test data, inspection data, internal notes, and records.”
- “All internal memoranda, emails, reports, meeting minutes, and other communications documenting your concerns about the Washington Bridge’s structural integrity at any point in time.”
Read Here’s What RI’s Lawyers Are Asking the Contractors Targeted in the Washington Bridge Lawsuit.